International Business Machines Corp on Monday asked a U.S. jury to award it $167 million in a lawsuit accusing e-commerce marketplace operator Groupon Inc of using patented technology without authorization.

Desmarais famously left Kirkland & Ellis in 2010 and formed his own firm around a licensing campaign of 4500 former Micron patents. Desmarais also represented Intellectual Ventures in several lawsuits.

As is typical, IBM’s lawsuit is the result of arbitrary hold-out behavior by Groupon:

“Most big companies have taken licenses to these patents,” Desmarais said. “Groupon has not. The new kid on the block refuses to take responsibility for using these inventions.”

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Desmarais told jurors IBM is a prolific innovator and seeks to license its patents on reasonable terms. IBM had no choice but to sue Groupon after it refused to negotiate a licensing deal, he said.

IBM claims that complies like Amazon and Google have already licensed the patents for $20-$50MM each.